Via sighed, doodling with the grease dripping off her burger. The burger was fine, but Nikki’s burgers were better. She missed being in a party with the chef.

Samuel slid into the booth across from her and grinned. “You ok?”

“Yeah,” Via said, sitting up. “Why?”

“You’ve been looking down lately,” he shrugged. “Not that I know anything, but seems to me you miss Nikki.”

Via focused on a fry. “Well, I mean, not- kinda. Just cuz we’re usually together. No real reason.”

Samuel wasn’t watching her. “Have you ever bought one of everything at the store?” he asked.

“What? No? Why?”

“We have extra cash now, so I tried it. They’ve got some super random stuff in there.” He pulled a flute out of his inventory. “Like this snake charming flute. Very limited use. Or this!” He put a can of wolf repellent on the table. “Specific, probably works on other things, but still random.” He pulled out a sock. “Why are socks sold individually instead of in pairs? We may never know. And that’s not even getting to the potions.” He pulled three vials out of his inventory and tossed them to Via. “Seriously, it’s like the Admin drunk-adds things. And once it exists he’ll never get rid of it.”

“Getting rid of things might make people complain,” Via said.

“I guess,” Samuel said, getting up. “Still random, though. I’m heading to the inn, see you tomorrow.”

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“Oh, bye,” she said, confused.

She looked at the vials in her hand. One made hair grow super fast. One made things twice as heavy. And the last… was a gender-swap potion.

“Oh.”

*****

Dear Diary,

I gave up trying to figure out Lily’s number and just messaged the Admin to ask what it was.

Then I messaged her and told her about how messaging works and that we need to start a phone book.

I think she thinks I asked her to do it because she started a book club. But I asked her because she’s good at talking to people. She’s… official. Not super formal, but she just looks like the type of person who would compile a phone book. Lilly looks like a librarian. Basically.

Anyways, she said she’d do it. And we know non-magical things get left in our inventories when the cycle resets, so next cycle we should be able to message whoever we want!

Well, anything that costs a gold and up gets taken out, and all money gets taken out. So we’re left with cheap, useless crap. Someone tried to have like a thousand bronze daggers in their inventory at cycle reset once, so we’re only allowed 50 of any item.

But a phone book shouldn’t be magical or expensive, and I only need one, so I’m good!

In other news, we’re still going slow. We’re on Floor 18. Ox says since we’re a bigger group than he’s used to, they’re leveling up slower than usual.

I’d kill for some kind of cheat code to be like “here! You’re Level 100 in everything now! Let’s go!” But I guess that would defeat the purpose of this whole thing.

Oh well. I’ll survive.

Hopefully.

Goodnight, Dungeon!

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